Question

I’m not a beginner at C# but I really need to increase my understanding, so I’ve picked a classic deadlock problem to code to help teach myself some of the more advanced concepts of C#. The Dining Philosophers Problem seems like a good one, but I need a little help to get started. I know I need to approach the ‘diners’ as objects, but to simulate the random delays between eating, should I look to threading with each diner in a separate thread? Do I need some kind of ‘master’ to monitor all the actions? Any general design concept advice is welcome, but I’d like to do the grunt programming as an exercise. Thanks!

Answer 1

I think the best approach to simulate it would be a Fork class with a method like use() that holds the fork (bool available = false) and a release() that releases it.

A Philosopher class with getFork(Fork) and releaseFork(Fork) that operates the holding/releasing of the object Fork (seems to me a timer would be good in a method useFork() so you can really perceive the deadlock.

And for Last a DinningTable (or any other name) class that creates instances, and do the log. If you plan to use threads, here is where you should implement a thread for each Philosopher concurring for the Fork.

As a suggestion, you could implement a Plate Class, holding a quantity of spaghetti that the Philosopher.useFork() method lower during the time frame. This way you can see which Philosopher finishes first.

I will let the implementations for you, of course, since your objective is to learn C# … in my experience, you better learn doing something concrete like these classes 😉 Besides, you can find lots of implementations on Google if you want to cheat …

I invite you to share the code after it . It’s a great Study Reference.

Hope This helps you.